April 16, 2014,
Fundamental Human Needs 
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Imagine that the postman brings you mail consisting of an envelope with sender “Change” and your name proudly sticking out as a recipient. You go back home, open the envelope with bated breath, and discover a ticket waiting for you inside. The flight destination is your own personal happiness, and the departure day is TODAY!
How many steps do you actually need to reach your happiness? The answer is: five. Five steps to create your “Happily Ever After”.
What I have learned from my many years in a relationship, and as a Relationship Counselor, Coach and Therapist, is that there are five fundamental human needs that need to be satisfied for someone to have a happy life and a rewarding and enduring relationship.
These are the “secrets”.
Let’s look at each step in detail in the form of steps of a ladder. Each step supports the other one followed by the next one to the very top. Do not forget – all five steps exist in unity and harmony. And this is their order: Physical Needs; Safety Needs; Feeling Needs; Love and Belonging Needs; Spiritual Needs.
The Physical Needs: Whether you are 1 year old or 101 years old, this need, like all the fundamental needs, is still present and requires satisfaction for you to continue to feel good about yourself and about your life. This need is fulfilled by close physical connection with your partner, where there is no fear of being hurt or touched in a way that does not feel right for you.
The Safety Needs: “Safety” here means the knowledge that someone – your parents when you were a child, and your partner when you are in an adult relationship – will always be there for you. You need to feel that this person will always be a “soft place” on whom to fall when you need someone the most, in good times as well as in times of distress.
The Feeling Needs: Feeling needs for adults and children alike include the need to feel all of your feelings without judgment. Not only do you have a need to feel your feelings, you also have a need to speak about them and to be told that you are loved and cherished just for who you are, with all your thoughts and feelings.
The Love and Belonging Needs: The fulfillment of these needs offers you peace of mind in the knowledge that you are not alone and that the struggle of life is not yours alone to bear. The reason for these needs is simply that you know that you are loved and truly belong to the family or group you are part of.
The Spiritual Needs: “Spiritual Needs” refers to the highest-order needs, those on the top rung of the ladder. This is simply because the Spiritual Needs take you out of the realm of the physical world and into that of the metaphysical which requires in the first instance a capacity to think outside of the self, a skill that generally develops through time.
When all these five needs are satisfied in your relationship, you will have truly discovered the secret to “happily ever after.”
I invite you to share your journey with me, when and how you felt your needs and whether they were or were not met by you.
To the wonder of you,
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